Jason Mesnick Reveals He Almost Wasn’t Bachelor Because of His Religion!

Now that Andi Dorfman’s stint as The Bachelorette is coming to a close, everyone is casting their vote as to who the next Bachelor should be. While half the country’s women are clamoring for a tractor-themed season with farmer Chris Soules, some are still holding out hope that the title of rose giver will go to Marquel Martin — um, we do have a black president people, why not a flower pusher? Well, Season 13’s Bachelor Jason Mesnick has some insight into why ABC may not seriously consider the Cookie Monster for the title role in 2015.

In his podcast with wife Molly Mesnick, Jason says “they haven’t cast an African American guy for a reason. It’s not because anybody’s racist at ABC or the production company, it’s because they’re not sure that the country is ready for it.” Kind of a sad state of affairs, but for a franchise with ratings that are already slipping, it’s not surprising that the network would be gun shy to give viewers any more of a reason to not tune in — if, that is, Americans truly aren’t ready to see Mr. Adorable, aka Marquel, find love.

Jason goes on to reveal that he almost didn’t get the role of Bachelor because of his family’s religion. “I had a direct conversation with the people at The Bachelor… and they weren’t sure they were going to have me be the Bachelor because my family’s Jewish,” he says. This, despite the fact that several of the execs at ABC are also Jewish. Since then, Bachelorette Season 7 winner J.P. Rosenbaum and current Bachelorette Andi (who is half Jewish) have represented the faith within the franchise.

While Jason isn’t sure if Marquel will be the next Bachelor or not, the Mesnicks agree the time is coming for producers to step out of their Caucasian comfort zone with the lead. “I’m sure that there have been conversations about ‘when do we have the first African American guy’ because it will happen.” Molly chimes in with, “well, this is the time to do it, because Marquel is fabulous.”

We agree girl! While we’d love, love, love to swoon at Chris’s dimples all season, we would also gladly feast our eyes on a whole lot more of Marquel.

What do you think? Does race and religion play too much of a role in ABC’s casting decisions? Tell us in the comments.